Cooking, or applying heat in order to prepare food for eating, uses three primary methods for applying heat. One method is conduction, which transfers heat from any matter to a second matter. A second method is radiation, which transfers heat without direct contact. A third method is convection which provides heat transfer through fluids.
Methods of cooking may use combinations of these types of heat application. For example, baking or roasting typically uses all three methods, with the majority of heat application occurring through radiation and convection. As another example, frying primarily works through conduction although a small amount of convection also occurs (the liquid contacts the matter to be cooked, transfers heat, cools and then is replaced by hot liquid.)
Each method is desirable for different reasons. Convection provides perhaps the most direct heating method, as the heating material, e.g. oil or fat in frying, is directly in contact with the food to be heated. Yet, each method may have drawbacks as well, e.g., frying foods through convection results in the food absorbing some amount of the oil or fat used.
Frying has become especially disfavored for health reasons. The triglycerides (melted fats or oils) used in frying are deemed less than healthful when consumed in any great quantities. For example, fried chicken, prior to frying, is breaded. The breading absorbs some oil or fat while the chicken is being fried and thus increases the caloric intake of the eater. Still, and despite these and other possible drawbacks, frying remains a cooking method of choice.
Frying is used, for example, in the manufacture of doughnuts. Large commercial fryers immerse dough wholly or partially and so cook doughnut shaped dough into doughnuts. Although it may be desired to attempt to produce doughnuts and other fried goods using other methods of cooking, to date it has been extremely difficult because of the large base of installed fryers. Replacing those machines with other types of cooking machines would be difficult, if not impossible.
Accordingly, it would be helpful to provide an improved method of cooking, with little or no modification to existing machinery.